As much as there are no definite demarcations between realism and abstraction in painting, there are no clear boundaries between portrait and landscape within the still life genre. The isolated fragment, the intimate setting, becomes a record of its cultural surroundings but also a deceiving composition about them. There are dislocated flowers, impossible seasons, hidden symbols, solidity and transparency at once, within an all-encompassing tribute to mortality, to the illusion of frozen time, of eternity. Natura morta (literally, “dead nature”), in its open testimony, condenses both the passive environment as found, as created nature (natura naturata) and its active counterweight as creative nature (natura naturans). As we see it, the still life is another perfect machine; it is an unpredictable description of facts and values, a kind of recreated mirror of human nature. If such a flat surface is reflecting the world or its author, either magnifying lens or self-portrait, its core ethical function is indeed equivalent to the purpose of a work of architecture. In its substantial stillness, the building is a mute reminder of subjectivity, of life unfolding within a living milieu. Ultimately, there is no such opposition between figure and ground, object and context, original and reproduction. Any building is a looking glass, despite its opacity. Thus, under the current ecological and social urgencies, the speculative scope of our studio will address two fundamental paradigms: the rather obsolete distinction between Architecture and Nature (both in capitals) and the capacity of architectonic space to be real and mental, presence and representation at once. Since buildings will be outlined at the edge between fiction and reality, their program will also overlap domesticity with monumentality. Likewise, the autotelic foundation of the building will be confronted with extreme wilderness, in fact, against the driest place on Earth. Developing an art center at Quillagua, a forgotten town on the banks of the only river that crosses the Atacama Desert, the studio will explore the artisanal possibilities of traditional load bearing construction (using brick masonry and the necessary reinforcements for seismic demands). Since projects will be limited by weight and gravity, they are going to be framed as patio houses or walled gardens, with spatial sequences extended at ground level.
Following our Naïve Intention program (research on the apparent contradiction between intentionality and chance, rationality and futility, prediction and circumstance, authorship and anonymity), students will follow a very precise sequence of formats according to three stages: Inventory, Drawing and Image. Projects will be developed in pairs, through handmade models, drawings, and paintings.